TY - UNPB

T1 - The Political Role of the Business Firm

T2 - An Ordonomic Concept of Corporate Citizen-ship Developed in Comparison with the Aristo-telian Idea of Individual Citizenship

AU - Pies, Ingo

AU - Beckmann, Markus

AU - Hielscher, Stefan

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - This is an essay in conceptual clarification: by way of comparison with the Aristotelian idea of individual citizenship for the antique polis, this article develops an ordonomic concept of “corporate citizenship” that offers two insights for academic scholarship. First, we clarify what is meant by a company’s political role. Companies take such a role if they do not confine themselves to acting as bourgeois within the basic business game of producing goods and services, but also participate as citoyen in the meta games of political rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourses. Second, we show that the political dimension of corporate citizenship need not weaken or compromise a compa-ny’s role as an economic actor. Rather, in light of deficient institutional rules, compa-nies need to take a political role if they wish to pursue their self-perfection as economic agents for value creation. This means that in processes of new governance the economic and political roles of the firm need not contradict each other but can follow the same win-win logic of individual self-perfection through cooperative social interactions.

AB - This is an essay in conceptual clarification: by way of comparison with the Aristotelian idea of individual citizenship for the antique polis, this article develops an ordonomic concept of “corporate citizenship” that offers two insights for academic scholarship. First, we clarify what is meant by a company’s political role. Companies take such a role if they do not confine themselves to acting as bourgeois within the basic business game of producing goods and services, but also participate as citoyen in the meta games of political rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourses. Second, we show that the political dimension of corporate citizenship need not weaken or compromise a compa-ny’s role as an economic actor. Rather, in light of deficient institutional rules, compa-nies need to take a political role if they wish to pursue their self-perfection as economic agents for value creation. This means that in processes of new governance the economic and political roles of the firm need not contradict each other but can follow the same win-win logic of individual self-perfection through cooperative social interactions.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - Aristotle

KW - Corporate Citizenship

KW - ordonomics

KW - self-perfection

KW - value creation

KW - Aristoteles

KW - Ordonomik

KW - Selbstvervollkommnung

KW - Wertschöpfung

KW - Aristotle

KW - corporate citizenship

KW - ordonomics

KW - self-perfection

KW - value creation

M3 - Working papers

SN - 978-3-86829-441-5

T3 - Diskussionspapiere

BT - The Political Role of the Business Firm

PB - Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

CY - Halle-Wittenberg, Sachsen-Anhalt

ER -